We are a small business - 3 people. Myself, My Dad (which I have spent a long time building a separate, more professional relationship with) and our newest coworker.
We've reached a point that our newest coworker has been expressing his behaviour to a point now that we have a niche understanding of what his triggers and associated behaviours are, and we had a bit of an intervention moment today about it.
He's got some long-term PTSD from his childhood that he's been dealing with for the past 40 years. Always holding himself to a high standard, past the point of logical allowance.
In the past, he's used every reason under the sun as to why he can't do things, or has to do things, or isn't able to deliver, or needs to deliver... It's all because of this PTSD (which not to be harsh, I don't believe is the correct application of the condition - he calls "having an argument about doing the dishes with his wife" Domestic Abuse - but I'll move past that)
We spoke about it this morning at work, brought it to light that this behaviour isn't logical. Basically; he's burning out because he's under the stress of not being able to deliver, and because of the pressure of not being able to deliver, it's causing him to burn out... it's a spiral.
We pointed that out, and made the observation of breaking that cycle, by making a statement; "I will finish - it might be hard, but I will do it. It might be late, but I will still aim to finish."
We've accepted that, we've acknowledged and are allowing for that. But that's something that he needs to deal with.
@NautArch I don't believe so. The situation is that we are not the environment that will acknowledge his PTSD in the way that we do not hold him accountable in the same way that his PTSD holds over him. Does that makes sense?
We believe he is perfectly capable of doing the work. We understand that things happen; life, other work, distractions, can slow things down. If it comes late, and he's got reason for it, that's perfectly fine.
@NautArch No, I don't believe so. We asked him to come up with a timeline so we understand how long things will take - we had no input in it, and he came back to us with one. He's started to fall behind, and is now under the pressure of "not performing" and "burnout"
We're just using it to get an understanding of what the project entails, and how long is needed to do it. So from what's happening, he's already pushed himself too hard to deliver before he can, so he can "impress us"
@Ben How often do y'all meet? It sounds like more frequent meetings and also finding a way to break the ice between you might help.
He sounds like there's a massive amount of self-imposed pressure coupled with wanting to impress the father/son partners and whatever is going on at home.
@NautArch Everyday to see how progress is going. Just "where are you at, how's it going". From my perspective, I use that to understand what kind of timeline he's made for himself, what allowances he's given (which is currently none).
Well, the most prominent issue is we swap chairs. "Ok, now Ben is the one falling behind. He's stressed out and needs to catch up - is that ok?" Apparently that's perfectly fine. Then we apply that same logic back on him; No. Not acceptable
The issue is that he cannot break out of this mindset that "he's never going to be good enough".
I dealt with depression for 6 years, and the way I finally managed to kick it was an active choice to reject it. I basically said "I'm not dealing with this anymore." and I didn't. I didn't allow myself to fall under the influence of the dark thoughts.
IT was a process, of course. But I made the choice and I stuck to it.
His reaction to that was immediately defensive. I smiled at him in a kind way, didn't say anything. His reaction was "are you laughing at me"
He's allowing himself to be controlled by his PTSD
And that same realization does apply to my partner as well.
She deals with a lot of stress and depression, because she can't/won't ask for help, because it's not ok.
Regardless of what I tell her.
I do understand why they behave this way. I just get lost as to why they don't want to make the choice, or the change.
Not that far :) More of a "here's the next project. WHat do you think about a general timeline and how often would you like to check-in on how things are going?"
Leaving him totally hanging isn't working out, so you need to find a middle ground where he feels free but supported.
@Ben Yikes! I'd do a project reset. He does need to know that this can't continue. Make it formal and written. But let him still know that you believe in him and that this can work.
Have the discussion again about how often or what you can do to help.
Is there anything he's talked about or that you've specifically seen that you think you have a solution for to help him?
@NautArch Nope. Like I said he's ingrained in his behaviours. Instead of "solving" anything, he's always focusing on why he's not doing/can't do things.
I don't know either of you, of course, so you may be right in this instance, but from what you said you do seem to be rather taking it for granted that your solution will work.
The "making a statement that he will finish however long it takes" one, that is. And then when it doesn't, saying "well it's his own fault he clearly doesn't want to resolve anything". At least, that's how you make it sound.
I have the "freezing up because under too much pressure" thing, and that would most definitely not work for me. Your co-worker may, of course, not be like me in that respect. Well, for his sake, I bloody well hope he isn't, so there you are.
I think it's more of an "avoiding completion because it's not good enough"
Because he's holding his standards too high. Like, his version of "alpha" is the finished, polished product. We've explained we expect a functional product that does the thing, regardless of how it looks or how well it does it
And in that mindset, it never will be good enough.
I have to agree with A.B. here. While your solution works for you mental health issues are entirely personal. My wife suffers from a similar kind of anxiety where she imagines pressure that doesn't exist and then shuts down do to that pressure.
Objectively I agree with your statement, she should be able to just decide not to do that. The logic supports that since the pressures don't really exist. However trying to apply logic to a mental state doesn't really work.
@linksassin no I completely agree. If anything, my "abilty" to disregard the depression came from my emotional reaction. I'd had enough. I wasn't going to deal with it anymore, which started out as shoving my fingers in my ears and going "lalala"
Have you discussed enforced work/life balance? I'm not sure how it works in smaller business but where I work we discuss work/life balance in every 1-on-1 with our manager.
He imposed those deadlines, and we have brought that logic up with him. If he can't deliver, he needs to extend it. But since he's already extended it by 6 months, he needs help to understand what he is or is not capable of, but that then feeds on his PTSD
Well, sort of. We understand programming. We've been doing it as long as he has. It's just what he needs to do in the program to get it all to work, what process he needs to do (like he might build the framework first, then build the db, etc). We want to give him some level of control, so he doesn't feel like he's being controlled, and told what to do and when to do it by.
As I've said, we've also gone over time management practices (Scotty time, allow a day for "other stuff" etc)
We did for a while, for now thought we've brought it back to basics. Excel and break it down to single tasks and day to day expectations. E.g. "write customer entry form - 2 days"
@bobble I did, but it was kinda not really thought out, I was stuck in a bit of a frustrated mood, and it ended up being a "what should I do, A or B?" question
@Ben One of the core principles of agile is that time is a bad unit to measure a task by. Instead an abstract measure of 'complexity' is used. Over time you get a feeling for how many 'complexity' points can be achieved in a single product increment / sprint / planning cycle / whatever.
The idea is that measuring tasks this way reduces the friction of running behind, because time =/= complexity.
I think that's kinda what we do with the scotty time? We've even made it a "scotty factor" - we start at double, if we go slower it increases, etc. It's a refinement process, ever changing. Eventually particular projects get assigned their own value. "Oh a new network install, yeah that's x4", or "a new web page, that x 1.5"
Though I might be thinking just "similar but different"
@linksassin Just that that entire explanation made me dizzy :-D units of work per unit of work? Aargh. I'm probably too tired to understand this, anyhow, even if there was a proper explanation.
@A.B. Basically we need a way to estimate the effort involved in a task. Traditionally that would be measured in hours or days. I.e. How long does this task take to complete? The problem with that approach is it leads to others saying "you said this would take 2 days, why isn't it done?" or even saying that to yourself and getting down or burned out.
Instead we introduce an abstract measure of complexity. In my workplace this is a number between 1 and 100 but with distinct steps (1,3,5,10,20,40,70,100 or something similar) the idea being this is a rough guide rather than a strict number. Trivial tasks get a 1. Highly complex tasks get a 100.
In one 'sprint' or planning cycle each team member is assigned tasks based on the complexity score. This moves the question to: "How complex is this task?"
Over time your team gets better at estimating the complexity of tasks and you develop what is called a 'sprint velocity' or a total complexity score that your team can complete in a sprint. Therefore you are able to set more realistic goals.
Isn't that just amount of work done in a certain time except the unit of time is "sprint" rather than "day"? Seems to me the "complexity" is a measure of work, not time.
@NautArch If you are of the opinion that I may not have an opinion on a statement that someone else made, take that up to the diamond team. While I know that you don't like me not liking one edition of a game, you are not allowed to gag people. Your repeated insistence that I may not voice my opinion is Harrassment. @AncientSwordRage @Someone_Evil I wish to put you on notice that I feel harrassed by NautArch's insistence that I may not talk about a topic.
@A.B. It's complicated, but it makes sense in practice.
Using abstract values instead of concrete hours helps, because people are bad at estimating, and well... things are always in flux. Using a deliberately abstract score will allow you to discuss tasks in terms of relative complexity which is much easier to estimate and often starts productive discussions.
Then, after some time, you'll start noticing a pattern that your team can do X-many of these imaginary workload points in sprint, and at that point you can essentially treat them as closer to concrete estimations. (The number of points you're doing per sprint is called "velocity", but it's a relative, not an absolute statistic since you might be using points differently than other teams)
@AncientSwordRage I don't need a mediator, I need affirmative action. I will not stand being repeatedly told that my opinion is not valid or that I may not have it. Because THAT is what they are yelling at me.
I think the crux of the issue is, that in chat there can be multiple conversations happening. Just because someone is asking about an edition you dislike (no mater how much) it doesn't often mean it's an invitation to join that conversation with negative (no matter how valid that negativity is) input.
In that case, it wasn't productive to pile on the criticisms levied by the quote retweeters
if you'd have said something like "I can see where they're coming from" BOOM, that's constructive.
same valid opinion on the edition, different (more productive/constructive) way of getting it acorss
@Trish I'm mediating because while I get you feel invalidated there's clearly been some miscommunication in chat, because that's not what they mean
it's unfortunate that criticising a game can imply that the people who play the game deserve criticism as well but that's how your comments seem to have been taken
Please only use flags to indicate that a message is spam or is something an average person would consider to have malicious intent, be offensive, or be harmful. Disagreements will happen and if you want to stop discussing/debating/arguing with another user, withdrawing from the conversation is the best action. I've noticed a high amount of invalid flags here. Not going to call out any users.
@kviiri I it is really that bad. I had read some of it with morbid curiosity and found it disgusting. It is an atrocity, and the original title was exactly what is in that tin.
@Trish IIRC, we discussed that game on Meta a few years ago, did we not? Like, one of the games we all by consensus said "let's just not give it air on this site" or something like that.
There has been a perceived general attitude of D&D hate dogpiling lately and and comments to the effect of "lol par for the course for 5E" contribute to that overall tone. That's the issue. Not that you're levying criticism against a system, but that perhaps the way that criticism is being delivered isn't particularly constructive, and potentially even harmful to others
My two cents: People should be able to talk about the flaws and problems with the system they play and the company behind that system. People do not, however, need to be able to have such conversations thrust upon them randomly and without warning. Such conversations should be opted into and held here
Can anyone point me to the meta post discussing what system(s) are taboo for this site? I have guesses but I don't want to bring it up to verify. Just looking to be informed.
@G.Moylan THere isn't a taboo thing. It's more that we know there are some truly rude systems out there. We've discussed them in the past when talking about their context. But we generally don't just bring them up for discussion in a hope to not further advertise for them.
I'm trying to make an effort to inform myself for both here and and greater RPG world in general. Can you point me to additional metas? The one above is good but it seems a specific category of game.
that's fortunate. I know some games like LotFP don't get attention here (for good reason) but it's not like they're "banned" or anything. I was unaware that such a game as that one in meta even existed and I didn't want to accidentally encounter it somewhere down the road
Having finally finished reading that meta: I am simultaneously saddened and not surprised that that game exists.
I actually am fairly proud of my slim hands and long fingers: I can pick up Pringles from all the way bottom of the tube. This once came in surprisingly handy while geocaching
The cache was hidden in a tube that had a pressure-operated piston one was supposed to raise by pedaling a nearby stationary bicycle. (yes, they are sometimes very elaborate). However, the pressure container was leaky and therefore the piston would not raise with a humane amount of pedaling, leaving the cache container at the bottom.
So, my pringles skills came in handy as I fit my hand inside the cylinder tube, elbow-deep, and with significant effort I retrieved the container.
@Trish I think I have a couple points to clarify here, firstly, NautArch is saying that as a Room Owner, which is part of chat moderation. Second, you are allowed to have your opinion, what you are asked to stop is making short, repeated, unconstructive rags on it, especially when that bleeds over into lumping the entire player base into it
@Someone_Evil I have my beef not with the playerbase, but with the Wizards of the Coast redaction that created the system with what I can only call either deliberate indifference to problems or outright sadism.
I'm glad to hear that (not that had actual doubts). Please ensure that your words don't become accidental insults onto others, nor that you sound like a broken record which may also be a slight issue
Like if I as a 5e fan expressed my discontent for WotC's handling of certain themes, and you responded with "yeah that does suck that the game you like is mishandled by its developpers"
That's appropriate, you are sympathizing with my discontent
Honestly, I'd lump "I think it sucks for them..." into unhelpful and not necessary. "I didn't like it because..." is a more reasonable statement. But making the jump to "you must think it's awful" which can be taken as "why are you playing this" isn't friendly, helpful, or necessary.
@AncientSwordRage Exactly. Framing it that way could lead to polarizing misinterpretation, so its better to find a different way to communicate your ideas.
@Trish Even though it was 5-6 years too late, Tasha's Cauldron introduced some DM tools that players had already been using to patch communication problems at the table.
@ThomasMarkov I read that book as a "in case we weren't clear that you can modify anything in the game as you see fit, here's a hardcover book example of us making that official"
Just to reitterate, I have nothing against the playerbase. Or even specific players. But the approach WotC has with "Hey, GM! Here, some half baked content, brew up stuff and use your players as Guinea pigs! Oh, and we don't help you find help. Help yourself!" - that is my beef with how it works currently. Sure, Tasha's cauldron exist, but too little too late.
@Trish And those are all your opinion about WoTC and the system. While I've got beefs with WoTC, that actually isn't really one of them. But framing those statements as from you rather than generally trying to convince others would be better. Additionally, it is very clear that you don't like D&D. When those issues come up, you don't have to say something every time.
@Trish I don't think many game developers do extensive and expensive testing before release these days. Many games put out there use their player community for feedback on features. Heck, they used to have magazines for that stuff.
@AncientSwordRage Let me look for the acutal statement, but they were advising GMs to homebrew by telling them something akin to make up shit, no guidelines, also, test it on your players again and again.
It's that really poorly formulated "how to homebrew" that gives you not even a toolbox that raises the most irk with me.
Reading the 3.5 DMG intro, it has some really crap advice about being the DM. E.g. "Choose the rule that you like the best, then stick with it for the rest of the campaign." Which is so close to good advice, it's painful.
Counterexample... TDE 4E has extensive rules how to calculate new jobs and job variations fo their build point system and make them balanced. THAT is a sandbox that is actually good. But the best balancing advice that wizards had is "throw it at your players, see what sticks". They don't even suggest to crunch numbers if a monster if killable at all.
Homebrew is "This town is populated by 123 elves, 234 humans and 9876 Dragons that took the shape of humans. They all worship Tiamat and wield Londswords+23 and an AC of 4. They also have 4 hit points, and if you slay them they revert into adult chromatic dragons."
That is anything but balanced... (and just what came up in 30 seconds)
@NautArch Most module runners, IME, do not use it. A lot of 'Homebrew' campaigns don't either, but most DMs I have played with use the occasional monster off Reddit, and allow balanced homebrew subclasses etc.
I would love more guidance on homebrew, but I'm not actually sure how helpful it'll be. Most of my experience with 5e has been in learning the system. I don't think I'd be as comfortable homebrewing without that experience. I just have a good feel for how things work that I don't think can be explained.
Especially with differences in tables and players that can very impact how the homebrew will work.
I've made items that are clearly unbalanced on paper, but not at all at the table.
So I'm not even sure I personally would want WoTC guidance. And given my experience in how they 'homebrew' with their UA, Wildemount, Tasha's, etc....I don't trust them to give me good guidance anyway.
@NautArch some guideline on how to calculate CR or how to establish that monster actually can be killed in a reasonable time would help tremendously. The immortal phoenix yesterday? even as someone that never hmebrewed a creature before the wd12 regen sprung to my face as "That beast can't be slain within a reasonable time unless you got really big guns"
True. For items, they don't really have to be balanced in any way.. they are rewards. The DM doesn't have to give them out, and rarity is just a guideline
I guess there is homebrew advice in the books, where it says "Don't let double concentration happen" (I may have imagined that being in the books), but it's not labled as homebrew advice
@Trish I still disagree with your methodology there :) But yes, people jump into homebrewing before they understand the basics - I think that's the bigger issue.
It's not the lack of direction, it's a lack of a foundation of understanding.
And in a system as big as 5e, there's a lot to understand that a guide couldn't do for you.
Ok, let me rephrase better: Something simple such as "Take the average damage your party does, reduce by the average healing and damage reduction. That's your average damage. Divide the HP by that to see how many rounds it should take averagely to kill the monster assuming everything hits. Then modify that number like this to get the average rounds you will spend fighting the monters."
@Trish Sure, but that's very simplistic. It's good for back-of-the-napkin, but not really. THere are way more moving parts that can impact things- including that death doesn't have to be the end of the encounter. But between spells, environment, battlefield control, etc. Lots of different things go into planning an encounter and designing the monster.
Just looking at raw pure damage is one way, and it's a good start - but I wouldn't have that be my only measuring stick (and I don't think you're saying that, either!)
@NautArch It's kinda ironic, that with DnD I started out wanting to homebrew everything but without being unable to homebrew anything, and ended without wanting to homebrew anything even though I probably could've
For monsters, I calculate how long it would take for it to kill the weakest PC at average damage, how long it would take the PCs to kill it at average damage. If the first number is two rounds and the second is four or five, then its a balanced encounter
But that Wizards not even gave that start to weed out bad ideas or overpowered monsters but instead points to "playtest it" instead of "familiarize yourself with the machine, look at this part here first, then that part, then adjust here" is honestly, a rat ass lazy approach by WotC.
@TheDragonOfFlame TDE has, in the creature book for 4th edition, actually a page dedicated on how to check if your monster is a threat to the players and it explicitly tells GMs that regenerating monsters are the hardest to balance and such.
@Medix2 Sure, thats all well and good. But I got bored of the content they had after my first five months of playing. So I multiclassed. Then, three months later, I got bored. Then I started DMing, but got bored after another three months, so I started homebrewing
@Someone_Evil There is everythign that oyu need to make a full stat block... bbut beyond "adjust a monster already there" I can find no word on how to balance the new monster.
